Overshading

[Barry Lee Hands]

Great thread.
I might add, if you take everything to the ultimate level, it can make it difficult to obtain a reasonable rate in the marketplace, if you are engraving professionally.
If you are wasting time in things that dont count, they are paying for the wasted time.
Where to draw the line is always a difficult question.

 

[fegarex]

I find this even applies to animals as well. Years ago I was shading an elephant around the tusks and had all kinds of shading. I happened to have a casting from Ron Smith and looked at it under the scope. He had about 1/4 the amount of lines and it looked so much better. The BIG difference is all of Ron's lines were in the RIGHT places.

 

[silverchip]

All I gotta say is GUILTY, In silver it is way to easy to over engrave let alone over shade the engraving too. I think it is a case of overcompensating for not having a really good plan to start with??????

 

[sam]

Thanks for your kind words, Mitch. And I believe you're right about it being a trend of the times. So many were pushing the envelope and taking shading to places it'd never been before. I started using a microscope in 1982 but in '89 microscope use was still in its infancy in the engraving world. So the scope takes a portion of the blame so to speak, as an enabler to overshading. McKenzie's work certainly got cleaner and more precise when he started using a microscope, but he exercised restraint with shading and maintained his iconic style.

 

[Omar Haltam]

Thank you for this great thread Sam, and it is nice to hear other masters input on the subject
thanks again everyone

 

[mitch]

during that era i did a Steve Hoel coke bottle with a symmetrical design where i tried to mirror reverse all the gold & stainless elements on opposite sides of the pattern (did that make sense?). it was an absolute B ! T ( H to do, trying anticipate inlaid line/leaf widths vs. their steel counterparts, etc. and i really wasn't happy with the finished product. i delivered it at a Knife Guild show (maybe KC, possibly Orlando) and the client thought it turned out ok, but i hated it and swore to never do such a forced, contrived design again. Lynton took one look at it and as politely as possible told me straight out, "These sorts of ideas almost never come off as well one hopes..." i would've liked to be at least mildly offended, but i knew he was right.

we were all just trying so hard to come up with something new & different. i suppose those years spent pushing the technical envelope did help make us better engravers, then we've spent the rest of our careers trying to be better artists...

 

[sam]

we were all just trying so hard to come up with something new & different. i suppose those years spent pushing the technical envelope did help make us better engravers, then we've spent the rest of our careers trying to be better artists...

Ain't that the truth! After a few years you reach the point of being able the make the tools do what you want, but the art side will always be the bigger challenge.

 

[Phil Coggan]

Perfection of engraving and design skills Sam!

I guess the idea we had was to make the leaves as realistic as possible by adding very fine lines we create shading that without magnification, looks realistic, as we know that the real thing when really magnified is really dots, the next step would be to do the work in dots, this would add again to the realistic side of it, however, I have seen many times this type of work carried out on guns, artistically it looks fantastic, but for me it loses the definition that line engraving has, but we come back to, do we want a photographic look or an engraved look. This is also a paradox because although we had the idea of creating a "real" look the leaves themselves are still Stylized."

Another aspect of producing very fine shaded scroll/leaves etc on guns is the time/money involved!

Phil

 

[Brian Hochstrat]

Personally, I have never considered overshading as a thing. There is either good shading or bad, regardless of the number of shade lines. Good shading shows the form and flow of the leaf, be it complex or simple. Bad shading tries to create folds that do not match or correlate with the edge of the leaf or has lines that do not follow the flow of the leaf, or just turns the leaf black and many more. In my mind the number of lines just determines how smooth the tonal changes and how many shades of gray there are between black and white. The fewer the lines the less gradual the change of tone and the more visible the individual lines are, kind of the same as dpi in printing, can you see the dots or do they blur. I understand that budget and or personal taste is factor for how fine you may want to shade, but in my opinion wether you use 50 or 5 lines the number of lines is not what determines if the job you did was good or not.

 

[Darrell]

I myself like to step outside the box, the shading is just stunning, superb work to say the least, keep em coming.

 

[sam]

I have seen many times this type of work carried out on guns, artistically it looks fantastic, but for me it loses the definition that line engraving has, but we come back to, do we want a photographic look or an engraved look."

Agreed, Phil. "Engraved look" is a great way to describe what I'm talking about, and in bulino engraving I much prefer good line work to dots, and I suspect it might take even more skill to know how and were to put those lines to achieve the desired result. A perfect example is banknote engraving. That is truly masterful line work! Of course a combination of lines and dots can be quite good as well.

 

[Phil Coggan]

Agreed, Phil. "Engraved look" is a great way to describe what I'm talking about, and in bulino engraving I much prefer good line work to dots, and I suspect it might take even more skill to know how and were to put those lines to achieve the desired result. A perfect example is banknote engraving. That is truly masterful line work! Of course a combination of lines and dots can be quite good as well.

Sam, dot work is a piece of cake compared to lines, as you know, with dots you can take your time, if the shading is not quite right it's a simple case of adding more dots in between the others or by using deeper dots, or even lightly burnishing to make lighter, for students, try doing a portrait with lines, you will understand what I am talking about

Phil

 

[mitch]

Sam, dot work is a piece of cake compared to lines, as you know, with dots you can take your time, if the shading is not quite right it's a simple case of adding more dots in between the others or by using deeper dots, or even lightly burnishing to make lighter, for students, try doing a portrait with lines, you will understand what I am talking about

Phil

exactly, Phil! and from a strictly technical standpoint, my 3D bulino leaf work is definitely "easier" to shade. lines have to maintain a continuity of flow from start to finish, evenly gradient spacing for the desired tone, etc., whereas dots are infinitely more flexible when defining contours, depth of shadows, etc. my 3D stuff is very demanding as far as the hand/eye precision required and i tend to really pack a lot detail into the design that would be impossible with line shading, so of course it's wildly more time consuming, but in some narrow sense using dots to shade the leaves is kinda easy.

 

[sam]

The line work of the legendary CZ Slania. As you say Phil, not much room for error and correction with this style!

And the Diana engraving by Simone Dainelli which is 100% lines. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it under my loupe. He has absolute control of line shading.

Bram Ramon's no slouch when it comes to line shading either. He knows just where to put 'em!

 

[bswezey]

Amazing examples of different ways of shading. Just took my first GRS Basic Engraving course and know I will be needing lots and lots of practice in this area!

 

[Marcus Hunt]

Good question Brian, and I should state that I only speak for my work and no one else's. I'm no authority on how it should or shouldn't be done. I just know that at that time I was obsessed with stuffing as many fine lines as I could into each leaf. Churchill cautioned me about it but it took several years for it to sink in. For my work, finer and more lines are not necessarily better than strategically placed shading using less lines, heavier lines when called for, and achieving highlights and an organic character.

Sorry, I only just picked up on this thread not having been on the forum for a while and very interesting it is.

One of the dangers I see is almost like Mitch pointed out, we're in danger of becoming engravers' engravers. Under the scope and photographed well we can see every detail and every flaw. It doesn't matter that the piece maybe 10X real life, we can see all the beautifully engraved shading lines and TO US, that's what matters, that's what it's all about isn't it? NO IT'S NOT!

I am working mainly on watches now and it is so so easy to over shade when you're working with a scope. I have to explain this to other engravers who I've taken on board at times. The client does not look at his watch under a microscope. They will look at it with the naked eye and all those magnificent shading lines that you've crammed in at 10x magnification now look like black blobs all over the watch at actual size.

More doesn't always equate to better. The old adage "Don't over egg the pudding," says it all. And Barry is right, when working commercially you want things to look good but you cannot spend 20 minutes shading one leaf. If three well placed shade lines do the job don't cram in eight just because the microscope enables you to do so.

Sam, is there any way you can put the original pic you posted alongside some more recent work of yours? I think then people might see what you mean by over shading.

 

[sam]

"Don't over egg the pudding," says it all.

Now that's a great quote!!

 

[Dani Girl]

I think I'm working my way up to Sam's first post. Trying to push the envelope of what I'm capable of and hopefully somewhere along the way picking up some taste and sense about what to just flat out not do, like over-shade the heck out of everything ignoring budget completely

 

[Marcus Hunt]

I think I'm working my way up to Sam's first post. Trying to push the envelope of what I'm capable of and hopefully somewhere along the way picking up some taste and sense about what to just flat out not do, like over-shade the heck out of everything ignoring budget completely

No Dani, it's not all about budget! More shade lines DON'T necessarily make the piece you're working on better.

This, unfortunately, is where a lot of self taught engravers go wrong. They see Sam's early work and think "Wow, that's great, I can't see anything wrong with it," when the man himself is telling you there is!!! Listen up, it looks great, there is no doubt BUT with a few less shade lines here and there it would look better. Sam recognises this on that particular piece and is trying to guide you. Please listen to what he is saying and learn. And I'll say it one more time, microscopes are great BUT they enable you to put in way too many lines which aren't seen by the normal observer who looks at the piece with the naked eye.

The key is to recognise this fact and learn when something needs a few more lines and when it doesn't. What gets me is these engravers who try and cram way to many lines into their acanthus type scroll but can't get their heads around putting one tiny shade line into the head of an English/traditional type scroll to finish it off!

 

[sam]

No Dani, it's not all about budget! More shade lines DON'T necessarily make the piece you're working on better.

Thank you Marcus! Budget was not a consideration in my post. It is all about lines and not the time it takes to engrave those lines. Obviously more lines does take more time, but the time it took wasn't my point at all (as you noted). It was about intelligent placement of lines vs stuff in as many as possible.